Whitman, Walt

Autograph manuscript initialed ("W.W.") 7 times, 2 pages on one leaf (9 x 7 3/4 in.;  229 x 197 mm), n.p., n.d., 24 lines in ink and pencil, being an extensively emended draft or re-draft of paragraph 30 from "A Song of Myself" in Leaves of Grass, verso comprising 22 prose lines, being an essay on city politics; top corners clipped, lower left corner browned and frayed, bottom margin cut unevenly.

Autograph manuscript initialed ("W.W.") 7 times, 2 pages on one leaf (9 x 7 3/4 in.; 229 x 197 mm), n.p., n.d., 24 lines in ink and pencil, being a extensively emended draft or re-draft of paragraph 30 from "A Song of Myself" in Leaves of Grass, verso comprising 22 prose lines being an essay on city politics; top corners clipped lower left corner browned and frayed, bottom margin cut unevenly.
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A variorum reading from "A Song of Myself" in Leaves of Grass. This poem, untitled and unsectioned in 1855, occupied more than half of the first edition of Leaves of Grass. In 1856 it was titled "Poem of Walt Whitman, an American"; in the 1860 and succeeding editions it was titled simply "Walt Whitman" until in 1881 it became "A Song of Myself." As the variorum readings indicate, the evolution of the poem began in the notebooks of 1847–1848, continued with scores of revisions through seven editions until the poem was finalized in 1881.  Given the fact that Whitman has annotated this draft along the top margin with his initials, we can postulate that it dates to the 1860s when the poem was known as "Walt Whitman." The final version of this paragraph is significantly different from the draft, but also retains a number of elements from the present draft.

The draft reads:

 

"There can be nothing little small or trifling useless in the universe;

The insignificant grows as tall is as spreads as far big as the noble;

What is less than a sheathed touch?

 

"All truths stand ready wait in all things places;

The [sic] wait with inclined heads and arms folded over their breasts;

They neither urge their own birth, nor resist it;

They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon;

They enclose to whoever fetches the heat warmth of the sunshine light and the moisture of rain.

 

"Only What fully satisfies the senses of all men is truth;

Logic and sermons never convince; me;

The dew of the night drives deeper into my the soul.—

An eternal A test of anything!

It proves itself to the experience and senses of all men and women!

Bring it to folks any thing; and you will see whether they doubt;

We They do not doubt contact or hunger or love;

We They do not doubt our fingers and toes; iron [?] stones nor or steam;

We do not doubt the truth being mystery of hunger and pain; of life, growth

We do not doubt the east or the west;

We do not doubt sight.

"Logic and sermons never convincem,

The damp of the night drivers deeper into my soul.""

 

The final version reads:

 

"All truths wait in all things,

They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,

The do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,

The insignificant is as big to me as any,

(What is less or more than a touch?)"